I'm seeing two things here.
One is that you need some context of *why* something is supported, as per your
examples.
The other is that you need a level of detail that's more than "one line."
However, I'd note that *all* of those examples are (in my MUA) one line each.
So, can you clarify? I.e., if Russ had included one of those lines, would that
have been enough?
I'd support asking for that level of detail. OTOH I'm not for making people
"show their work" to a greater level of detail; the overhead of participating
in an effort is high, and the most relevant people are often exhausted by this
point in the process. We shouldn't pile more work onto them (he says, conscious
of the work piled onto ADs as well).
Regards,
On 11/06/2013, at 5:37 AM, Pete Resnick
<presnick(_at_)qti(_dot_)qualcomm(_dot_)com> wrote:
Russ, our IAB chair and former IETF chair, just sent a message to the IETF
list regarding a Last Call on draft-ietf-pkix-est. Here is the entire
contents of his message, save quoting the whole Last Call request:
On 6/10/13 1:45 PM, Russ Housley wrote:
I have read the document, I a support publication on the standards track.
Russ
A month ago, we had another very senior member of the community post just
such a message (in that case directly to the IESG) in response to a different
Last Call. I took that senior member of the community to task for it. But
apparently Russ either disagrees with my complaint or didn't notice that
discussion on the IESG list, so I think it's worth airing here in public:
A statement such as the above is almost entirely useless to me as an IESG
member trying to determine consensus. It is content-free.
We don't vote in the IETF, so a statement of support without a reason is
meaningless. We should not be encouraging folks to send such things, and
having the IAB chair do so is encouraging bad behavior. Had I not known Russ
and his particular expertise, I would have no reason to take it into
consideration *at all*. We should not have to determine the reputation of the
poster to determine the weight of the message. Even given my background
knowledge of who Russ is, I cannot tell from that message which one of the
following Russ is saying:
- This document precisely describes a protocol of which I have been an
implementer, and I was able to independently develop an interoperable
implementation from the document.
- This document is about a technology with which I have familiarity and I
have reviewed the technical details. It's fine.
- I've seen objection X to the document and I think the objection is
incorrect for such-and-so reasons.
- My company has a vested interest in this technology becoming a standard,
and even though I know nothing about it, I support it becoming a standards
track document.
- My Aunt Gertrude is the document editor and she said that she needs
statements of support, so here I am.
- I have a running wager on when we're going to reach RFC 7000 and I want to
increase my odds of winning.
I take it I am supposed to presume from my friendship and knowledge of Russ
that one of the first three is true and that the last three are not. (Well,
maybe the last one might be true.) But if instead of from "Russ Housely", the
message was from "Foo Bar", I would have absolutely no way to distinguish
among the above.
I think we should stop with these one-line statements of support. They don't
add anything to the consensus call. I'm disappointed that Russ contributed to
this pattern.
Other opinions?
pr
--
Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478
--
Mark Nottingham http://www.mnot.net/